Hallway Fight

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Fights can take place in many strange locations such as a bar, a diner, or even on top of a train. Each location creates its own atmosphere and limitations which dictate the movements of the fighters.

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A Hallway Fight, as the name implies, takes place in a corridor. The fighters are more or less forced to go in one direction while the narrow and cramped quarters force them into a more claustrophobic battle. Because of these restraints, the fights can be very close and quite brutal. If the director so chooses, it can also be the perfect opportunity for The Oner. It can also be a way to Hand Wave the Mook Chivalry trope as multiple opponents often have to come one-by-one.

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Examples:

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Comic Books

An issue of the Warren Ellis run on Moon Knight has Mr. Knight fighting his way through an entire brownstone house to rescue a kidnapped girl, including several hallways.

Films — Live-Action

In Oldboy, Oh Dae-Su fights his way through a long hallway of mooks, armed with a hammer. It is perhaps the most well known action sequence in the movie due to it's intense level of violence and for being The Oner.

In Kill Bill Vol 2, the Bride and Elle briefly get into a sword fight in the hallway of Budd's trailer, which leads to the Bride ripping the eye from her socket and considering she only had one eye to begin with, it gives her the win.

In The Raid, the main characters have to take down an entire apartment building full of gangsters, which leads to plenty hallway fights. One of the main fights involves them slashing their way through bad guys with machetes.

The climax in Rogue One involves Darth Vader himself killing his way through a corridor of a Rebel spaceship in order to obtain plans for the Death Star. Calling it a "fight" is perhaps being generous.

Inception features a hallway fight between Arthur and a nameless mook. Because they are inside the dreaming mind of a person in a rolling vehicle, the two men end up grappling as the hallway rotates and they flop this way and that.

In The Matrix, the Final Battle between Neo and Agent Smith takes place in a building hallway inside the Matrix.

In Terminator 2: Judgment Day, young John Connor is trapped in the narrow gallery of a corridor in a shopping mall when the T-1000 comes around the corner and starts shooting at him. Luckily for John, T-800 is around and shields the boy from the bullets, although an unlucky janitor is killed in the crossfire. Then T-800 pushes John into an adjacent room and a shoot-out between the two terminators unfolds in the corridor.

The action thriller Snowpiercer takes place on a train, so all unfolding fight scenes resemble hallway fights.

In "New York's Finest", after freeing himself from Frank Castle, Matt fights off Dogs of Hell bikers in the hallway of an apartment building, which eventually leads to a stairwell fight. This is an homage to The Raid.

In "Seven Minutes in Heaven", Wilson Fisk needs to get rid of Dutton, the guy who runs the prison's underground economy. So he tricks Frank Castle into entering Dutton's cellblock. After Frank kills Dutton, Fisk locks him in, and releases all the prisoners who are quick to get revenge on him for killing their boss. He ends up having to go down a corridor, stabbing his way out with a shiv.

Season 3 sees Matt have a continuous one-take fight that one-ups the season 1 fight. In this one, Matt visits Rikers to try to get information on Fisk's time there. Fisk directs a bunch of inmates to start a riot and attempt to kill Matt, forcing Matt to fight his way out down several corridors. This one is a true ten minute longone-take fight, which not only sees Matt fight inmates and guards in Fisk's pocket, but also get information on Fisk out of the Albanians in the prison, and convince them to get the guards they own to help smuggle Matt out of the prison.

When Will Simpson turns into a psychotic super soldier, he attacks Jessica in her apartment. The two of them fall through a wall and start smashing each other against sides of a small passageway.

The season 1 finale sees Jessica have to fight her way through a hospital corridor filled with doctors and patients that Kilgrave has ordered to stop her. She tries to sneak down the hall to get out but she is soon spotted and forces her way through, getting a nasty cut with a scalpel for her troubles.

Luke Cage (2016): In "Who's Gonna Take the Weight", Luke Cage attacks Crispus Attucks, the location of Cottonmouth's main stash, using his Super Strength to bulldoze his way through Cottonmouth's henchmen in three different hallways before finding the vault where all of the money is stashed.

A group of Triads armed with hatchets show up at Danny Rand's hotel suite and try to kidnap Joy Meachum in retaliation for a pier deal she and Ward reversed on Harold's orders. Danny fights his way down a corridor full of their men until he gets to the elevator, where he dispatches the last two, before fleeing with Joy to Colleen Wing's dojo. Harold later kills the guy who hit Joy by splitting his head open with a sword.

Danny and Davos later fight a group of Hand members in a narrow passage while escaping Bakuto's compound, and almost get overwhelmed due to the cramped quarters.

A few episodes later, Colleen Wing and Davos rescue Danny from Bakuto and his men as they try to capture him from Harold's penthouse. The three of them dispatch Bakuto's men in the lobby of the General Electric Building, then chase down and fight off Bakuto in Central Park.

The Defenders (2017): This one is how the heroes all end up coming to meet. It starts in the boardroom of Midland Circle Financial as Danny confronts Alexandra. After taking out a dozen fighters armed with tranquilizer guns, he is eventually overpowered by a second wave. He is about to be captured when Luke suddenly breaks down the doors and they fight their way out. They burst out through the wall into the nearby hallway just as Matt and Jessica arrive. After an awkward exchange as Luke and Jessica recognize each other, they find themselves pinned down, with Elektra approaching on one side and a bunch of goons coming from the elevator and stairwells. Luke, Jessica and Danny handle the henchmen while Matt fights Elektra one-on-one.

When Frank infiltrates the enemy compound during a flashback to his service in Kandahar, he begins shooting his way through a few corridors before running put of ammo and using a knife, then a rock.

A hallway fight/stairwell chase happens in a hotel as Frank overpowers several cops and Anvil security operatives as he's chasing after Lewis Wilson, a PTSD-afflicted soldier-turned-Mad Bomber who has taken Karen hostage.

Of all places, season 5 of Arrested Development features a brief yet very gymnastics-heavy fight between George-Michael and Micheal.

Season 4 of The Flash (2014) has the villain DeVoe breaking into ARGUS Facility and butchering the guards with his psychic powers in a corridor.

In the third season of Lucifer (2016), there's a scene where the title character enters a korean drug dealer's hideout and then beats all the thugs in the hallway while K-pop music plays.

Wonder Woman: In "Judgment from Outer Space", Major Steve Trevor and friends are trapped in a hallway by two groups of Nazi soldiers. Wonder Woman rescues them by overpowering both groups.

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Video Games

Twilight Princess: The ice dungeon's miniboss room appears on the map as a circle, as with all the other. Once inside, however, it's actually a long corridor (the extra space is used for storing, of all things, cannons)., with the miniboss being a giant armored lizard swinging an Epic Flail. To get past him without getting smashed to bits, Link has to hookshot the ceiling behind the lizard and drop down.

Off-screen example in Evil Genius, in which the greatest triumph of Super Agent Jet Chan was defeating an evil genius who built a long, narrow lair which ran the length of the Great Wall of China. Chan reportedly used the lair's layout to his advantage, forcing the genius' mooks to fight him one-on-one rather than let them gang up on him.

Web Original

Anime Crimes Division: Season 2 has Joe get in a hallway fight when he visits Prestige TV City, a city dedicated to beloved western shows like Breaking Bad and Game of Thrones instead of anime. It's even lampshaded with an original song playing in the background all about how you have to have a hallway fight scene now.

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